American Healthcare System

Facing a personal health scare while knee-deep in launching a Kickstarter campaign, we found ourselves entangled in the very topic we aim to unravel: the American healthcare system. The past weeks have seen us grappling with the cost and accessibility of care, even with 'good insurance' in our corner—prompting a hard look at the high costs, inefficiencies, and the barriers to preventive care that plague our nation. Join us for an honest conversation as we recount the trials of navigating this system, juxtaposing our tales with the broader U.S. healthcare conundrum.

The Affordable Care Act set out to bridge healthcare gaps, yet we're still miles from the finish line. This episode peels back the layers of Obamacare, discussing the strides in protecting those with preexisting conditions and the contrast against international models, like Portugal's blend of socialized and private care. We consider the depth and impact of our current challenges, from the aging population straining our healthcare infrastructure to the dire need for a proactive approach. The solution might just lie in the lessons from systems that prioritize the human element over profit.

As we wrap up, the stark disparities in American healthcare come to the forefront—where your financial standing can dictate your health outcomes. We propose a shift towards a more equitable system, inspired by successful healthcare models around the world, advocating for a basic medical system that ensures no one faces bankruptcy due to illness, all the while allowing room for specialized private care. It's a heartfelt call for a healthcare system that burns brighter with hope, rather than one resembling the "dumpster fire" many find themselves in today.

Transcript

Sam: 0:10

Welcome to Babe. What Do you Know About the podcast with your favorite husband and wife duo Sam

Tayla: 0:16

and Tayla. Each week we dive deep into a new subject, blending fun and seriousness to push boundaries and buttons.

Sam: 0:24

Get ready to expand your knowledge, challenge your perspectives and have a blast along the way. Welcome to Babe. What Do you Know About the podcast with your favorite? Husband and wife do some finishing touches on the game and then to figure out the go-to market strategy.

Tayla: 1:35

That is wild. I mean. Excuse me, we'll get into this in a second, but I'm recovering from illness, so you've been working on this game how long A little over three years yeah almost three and a half, probably by the time it comes out. Is it weird to think that you will like launch a Kickstarter in like two months After all this?

Sam: 1:59

Yeah, it always feels like there's something else that comes up, like that leads a little bit. So like right now we're running into the Chinese New Year, so that's going to push it back like by a few more weeks, so probably April for the Kickstarter.

Tayla: 2:13

Oh, first time hearing.

Sam: 2:14

Exactly, it was always something. But in terms of like lining up everyone else, like you know, we got some like videographer stuff, we got some other promotional stuff. April seems to line up better for everyone else anyways. So it kind of works out.

Tayla: 2:30

Wow, wild, also wild has been our last couple of weeks. You were sick we recorded this a couple of weeks ago over your birthday and then our son, a little 18, well, 19, a third now ended up getting sick as well, and bad enough that we had to take him to the hospital. Sorry, Look, he's coughing now, oh my gosh, give me that water, please, oh you know, yeah, you don't want the germs Blame.

Tayla: 2:56

He had to go to the hospital. That sucked We'll talk about that, I think, later on in this episode. And then he ended up getting better and I ended up getting sick and losing my voice. It's just barely kind of coming back. Apologies in advance for not only the coughing but also the state of my voice Not ideal for podcasting in particular, but it is what it is, and rather than delaying by a whole nother week, we thought, oh well, you guys will have to deal with it.

Sam: 3:19

Let's just go get your big giant Stanley cup thing, whatever.

Tayla: 3:22

Yeah, how many? I don't measure very well and it's like 60, it's like 70 ounces I think it's a gallon.

Sam: 3:30

It looks like a gallon.

Tayla: 3:31

Yeah, it's like a gallon water bottle and I put my special ice from the ice machine at work, loaded it up today, which is awesome. All right, we paused while Sam got that for me. Thank you, I feel much better, but it's been a wild, frickin couple of weeks. January is just kind of suck for us. A year ago we also had taken Max same baby, much younger to the ER for frickin RSV like dude.

Sam: 3:58

you guys have probably heard us tell the story, but it basically they didn't do anything for him and then charged us to a few thousand dollars. It was just awesome, yeah we'll tell it.

Tayla: 4:06

We'll, for sure tell the story. But rough we're finally all on the men now, kind of and I was sitting in the hospital, I think, and I even brought it up. I'm like our next episode is going to be on the frickin American healthcare system, because this is just quite the thing. So let me do my little intro and we'll go from there. So we're going to peel back the curtain on the ever fascinating, often frustrating and undeniably vital American healthcare system.

Tayla: 4:36

This patchwork quilts of a system stitched together with private insurance, government programs and out of pocket expenses, is bewildering. The US spends twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other developed nation, yet millions remain uninsured and even those with coverage face skyrocketing costs that can bankrupt a family. It's a system with dazzling technology and world-class specialists, but where one where basic preventative care can feel like scaling Mount Everest in your bare feet. So we're going to dive a bit into those contradictions, explore topics like universal healthcare, the debate about that, the rise of big pharma, struggle to ensure access to quality care for Americans, and talk about the impact on healthcare providers and patients. So, babe, what do you know about the American healthcare system?

Sam: 5:24

A little bit. I'm very opinionated about it, so am I.

Tayla: 5:27

Dude, it's hard not to be because I think, especially as you start to get like a young family and I was talking to my friend Claudia about this, I was asking her her opinion on it and she's like it kind of depends on your stage of life, on your like. Your experience with a healthcare system will vary so much depending on a stage of life, health things it's just hard and complicated. But some things are not complicated, like to get an IV. You shouldn't have to go to the ER and pay like yeah. So let's talk about what happened with Max.

Sam: 6:01

Okay.

Tayla: 6:02

So our little 19 month old he had this is gonna be TMI, but I guess this is healthcare. So there you go, everyone get ready for it. He had been having like very severe diarrhea for almost a week. It was like every hour, every other hour through the night he had horrific nappy rashes, or diaper rashes, or however you say it, and we had been struggling with him. We didn't know what was wrong with him, no one else was sick, and so eventually after day it was the sixth day that I had known that I was just there's no improvement. I don't know what's going on.

Tayla: 6:37

I took him back to our pediatrician and she was very concerned about him because he was lethargic. He wouldn't, he had struggled to like raise his head, he didn't wanna do anything, and so she said I think he's struggling with dehydration, along with what I think might be a virus called rotavirus, which there was a vaccine before and Max had had, but she's like it just seems severe enough that there could be a strain going around. She said I need you to take him to the hospital so that they can give him the IV bag treatment to help with the dehydration, and also take it to a stool sample and test it. And so I was like, okay, so like, which wing of the hospital should I take him to? She's like, no, you need to go to the ER. And I was like, wait, I knew that, like there's it's so expensive to go to the ER and it's also stressful.

Tayla: 7:26

And I was like, is there not you're telling me he just needs IV fluids and a test? Like there isn't a clinic to go to. You can't refer me to the section of the hospital that does that. Like she said, no, you need to go to the ER. It probably will be cheaper for you too, because then they can hold him for 23 hours and not technically admit him. And she was trying to save me money. But also there wasn't any other good place to take him and we even you know I called you I was like I guess I'm on my way to the freaking emergency department and we even thought about, like, are there private IV clinics? We probably, but would you trust him for medical care of a young infant no right.

Tayla: 8:05

And so we're just like, well, I guess that's our option and I go there. And that waiting room was wild, I mean horrific, absolutely horrific, and nothing even crazy was happening. We did have quite a few ambulances coming in with like urgent traumas, but the room was it was a Friday afternoon it was absolutely chock full of people, people in crazy stages of discomfort, of clear pain. There was a guy just literally cradling his arm and I was like that dude's sitting here for hours with probably a broken wrist or something. There was an elderly man who was physically shivering and shaking, had like three older friends with him and he's just sitting there clearly in pain. There was this really young mom. She was probably like 25. She had an eight year old and a seven year old that no one else and the kids like I mean, she is so unwell she can't even open her eyes, I like-.

Sam: 8:56

She just paused out on the ground.

Tayla: 8:57

Well, yeah, she was sitting in a wheelchair and a woman that was there with a friend like set aside some space on the bench and got her a heated blanket and got her to lie down and tried to take care of her kids. Asked her kids, like, have you eaten? And I'm like, wow, if this kind stranger wasn't here. Like what do you do as someone who is so unwell that you can't even take care of yourself and you have kids?

Sam: 9:18

Yeah, and that was just our side. And there was the other side of the waiting area and, like I saw it just a few times, and there are people there with, like some serious injuries. Yeah, like literally just like people that like oh OK, well, the bleeding is not going on right now, Just hold tight, you wait.

Tayla: 9:33

Yeah.

Sam: 9:34

And how long?

Tayla: 9:36

So we were there with Max. He's a baby that is lethargic. They're concerned about him, and it took almost three hours for us to get back.

Tayla: 9:45

Emergency room to just get seen and I thought to myself well, no wonder it's like constantly backed up because anyone with any problem this is where they can go to get treatment. Today, this is the only place. So therefore, like, do I with a son that needs to just get IV treatment and testing, do I need to be here at the emergency department? No, I don't, but I do because there's there's no other place to take him.

Sam: 10:08

Yeah.

Tayla: 10:08

So I just sat there thinking, really like this is a world class healthcare system, like this is, and again, every other. Every healthcare system has its, has its cons Everyone does, and so we'll talk a bit about that. But I was just like, really, this is like quote, unquote the best that money can buy, this is our efficient system.

Sam: 10:28

This is like yeah, it was pretty interesting. So we got like we'll, you know, let's back eventually. And they did a pretty quick blood test. So they just did a little blood roll and then came back within 30 minutes after that. So it's like 30 minutes waiting once we got in and then 30 minutes after the blood test, so about another hour. He says, well, everything actually looks fine. He just has, like you know, normal levels of dehydration. I think we need to worry about everything looks good, Glucose looks good, but I think we should do an IV bag just to make sure. Like you know, he's OK.

Tayla: 11:01

Yeah.

Sam: 11:02

So so yeah, so eventually we do the IV bag and then we do a second IV bag to the whole thing takes about and he's just like. The doctor came in again. He's like just make sure he's OK. You know, not like oh, we have to do two IVs, just like it's better safe than sorry. And then you know he's like well, just let us know when Max has got his. You know has gone to the bathroom and we'll do a stool sample. Doesn't, but Max never did while we were there until the very end.

Tayla: 11:30

I guess, so we were leaving yeah.

Sam: 11:32

But that was it. It was the whole thing while we were there. Maybe an additional? Four hours and we weren't even put in a proper room. We were put on a side room that was set aside for psychiatric patients. So it was like a bizarre, weird room the whole thing. You know, max kind of seems a little bit better by the end of the whole thing. He's got a little more energetic.

Tayla: 11:51

The next day, for sure. Yeah, he was much better.

Sam: 11:54

But yeah, we, we get discharged fairly quickly, you know after that.

Tayla: 11:58

And kind of like us to be discharged. They were like happy for us to be there for a few more hours to check on him, but we were like he's fine, no we'll take him home.

Sam: 12:07

I would like to now take a moment and let everyone think we'd me and Tayla just got the bill for this.

Tayla: 12:12

Oh yeah, for the treatment that he just described.

Sam: 12:15

So now that we've just described that, throw, throw your guesses into the ether. Yeah, I'm going to give you just a second, Keep it Anyways. So the bill came back and it was five and a half thousand dollars. Five and a half thousand dollars for us to have waited almost three hours to be admitted to the emergency to get two IV bags two IV bags and still test, and then to be discharged. Five and a half thousand dollars, and that, yeah, that's we're insured.

Tayla: 12:46

So we'll probably pay still two thousand dollars of that. Yeah, two and a half, yeah, like we'll play, we'll pay probably at least half of that, and we're on insurance and we're on good insurance.

Sam: 12:57

So so you know this is obviously going to be painful, but then me and Tayla think about you know there's other people that are not as fortunate as us. What the hell do they do? And we know what happens, because we've gotten the bill after Max was in the ICU Sorry, the NICU when he was born.

Tayla: 13:13

Right.

Sam: 13:13

They just be like here. Look, here's your giant bill and we'll just put you on a payment plan over the next couple of years.

Tayla: 13:18

Yeah, you'll be paying for this for the rest of your life. Well, not us, but like, depending on like. If you, we're not even. How much do we spend on health care a year?

Sam: 13:27

Oh, so yeah, because I know this, because I follow our taxes, it's we average about twenty five thousand dollars a year. That's total, like so, as far as the premium insurance plus out of pocket, twenty five thousand dollars a year.

Tayla: 13:38

That's how much we spend on insurance, and we're not like sickly people. None of us has a disease, none of us has a disability, none of us. This is just.

Sam: 13:50

Basic yeah.

Tayla: 13:52

And still, even though I'm insured the way that we are, it still is a question Like I remember a year ago when Max was coughing in the night horribly and I was like something's wrong. That was a debate I was forced into. I was like do I take care of my child and be sure that they are OK, or do I wait the five hours till an urgent care can open up because it's going to be so expensive? What a horrible, freaking question Like. What a horrible thing to have to consider as a parent, in your child's health is just making it affordable. And that's what the doctors do. Like half of their job is trying to help their patients not get bankrupted by being cared for.

Sam: 14:35

Yeah, I'd say I go to the doctor. Probably one out of ten times I should go to the doctor.

Tayla: 14:40

And it's even, that is, upon many days of insistence.

Sam: 14:43

Yeah, like eventually I got to the point one of the times with my headaches I was like, well, it's been like nine days of straight headaches and I'm just like debilitating headaches. So it was like there might be something wrong with me.

Tayla: 14:54

Yeah, I was like, hopefully you don't have like a tumor or something random. Yeah, so OK so and we're insured, again, we're insured, we're well insured. Yeah it's just anyway. So let's let's talk a little bit about some facets of the American health care system. So I shared this in the introduction, but the US spends twice as much per capita on the health care as any other developed nation, yet it ranks 29th in life expectancy. So why do you think there's such a vast gap between spending and outcomes?

Sam: 15:31

It, the bloat in private insurance, the actual, the insurance companies, and I think that is a symptom of Obama care. So if we rewind back to 2008, 2008,. That was Obama right.

Tayla: 15:43

When he was inaugurated?

Sam: 15:44

Yeah, so I like to mess with presidents very well spoken, I like to centrist policies, but one of the things that I didn't like and agree with was Obama care. Obama care was basically the compromise that the left wanted, basically universal health care. That was the big push, but that was just never, ever going to be coming to law, because you know the fear of socialism, and this plan Obama care is is pretty much a replica of what Mitt Romney did when he was the governor of Massachusetts, and it's a it's a Republican plan. It's basically it's. It forces everyone to be insured, but that's the way you get everyone to have, basically quote unquote, universal health care. Everyone has got health care coverage, but you're forced to buy private insurance to do that. There's a middleman of, you know the capitalism, but what's happened, though, is that you now have this giant bloat of an industry that everyone's forced to pay into, and they don't provide anything of value.

Tayla: 16:48

You don't have the benefits that you should have for paying for those intrusions.

Sam: 16:52

No, we might as well have just gone straight to universal healthcare and not have a big giant middleman going. Oh cool, thank you for the money. Now that we're processing that, you're required to pay me.

Tayla: 17:02

Yeah, well, one thing. I will say two parts of Obamacare that I do like and that I think were really important. One is not being able to be denied because of preexisting conditions. That is an outrageous concept that is so outdated that I'm grateful is not the case because of Obamacare. That was ice.

Sam: 17:22

That was delicious.

Tayla: 17:23

And then the other one was extension of benefits for a child till 26. Yeah, great things, but Again, Obamacare itself, not the right solution, but those facets of it, something that I think are important and were good steps forward.

Sam: 17:40

Yeah, even economically for us as a nation it's better to have socialized medicine than it is to have Obamacare.

Tayla: 17:47

Economically Right. Well, that's the thing.

Sam: 17:49

This is my conservative right wing hat on. Has even since forever. Almost feels like 20 years now has been like look, yes, capitalism, yes, entrepreneurship, yes, deregulation on a whole lot of different things. Yes, so many things right, but when it comes to medical care, I have a progressive or left or whatever you wanna call it, but it comes from an economic standpoint. It doesn't come from a bleeding heart like, oh, everyone needs health insurance.

Tayla: 18:18

Well, don't say it like that, because that's where mine comes from. Which is fine? Which?

Sam: 18:21

I think is a very. It's a fine point of view and I feel like it's a justified point of view. I'm just saying straight from an economic perspective.

Tayla: 18:28

It still makes the most sense, it still makes the most sense. Yeah, I agree, and that's something that like it's wild to me that healthcare has been so capitalized on. That it's really in America. Healthcare is about money, it's inextricably linked to money, and that's the root of all evil, really. I mean, we've talked about this with like government too, but the fact that policies on people's wellbeing literally whether they can like live as a human being properly is being determined by profits, that's wrong. I think healthcare is a human right.

Tayla: 19:13

Yeah, no, I can or access to healthcare is a human right.

Sam: 19:16

Yeah, I think that's a valid point and I don't think it's not really a point that I disagree with at all.

Tayla: 19:24

Yeah, and I will say this isn't just Tayla's opinion, this is the international community's opinion, because it's one of the rights listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Sam: 19:36

Yeah, so I mean there are so many countries that have quote unquote socialized medicine, so many, and the vast majority of them perform extremely well.

Tayla: 19:50

Very well yeah.

Sam: 19:50

And I feel like when someone usually quotes like, oh, socialized medicine doesn't work, they usually quote I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Tayla: 19:55

Venezuela.

Sam: 19:56

Yeah, exactly the few that don't work, the few that struggle.

Tayla: 20:00

But usually they're not working because of myriad reasons, not just because it's social. It's like, yeah, it's a war-torn country, it's a corrupt country, you know.

Sam: 20:09

Yeah, so like we went on vacation to Portugal. When was it?

Tayla: 20:13

November.

Sam: 20:13

November and while we're there you know we're not too dinner with like a South African, you know people that had moved there and blah, blah, blah, and we were asking them about. Well, it was one of the things I asked them and I was like so, like what is the cost of healthcare here? And they're like you know, we, we, we splurge.

Tayla: 20:30

It's a little bit expensive yeah it's a little expensive.

Sam: 20:32

We like to also get the private insurance. So there's, you know, they have socialized medicine there, but they also have like a private level and they're like, yeah, it's about a hundred bucks a month for the family and we're like what, a whole family a hundred bucks a month? And it's like so, how much do you? Spend For the privatized, for the privatized, yeah, and so what's nice about that is you get to the front of the line and you know you get, you know you can just drop out whenever you want Options doctors.

Sam: 20:53

And then they're like. So I was like, well, how much in a typical year do you think you spend on your family? And he's like, you know if it's been a like, you know like there's been times that would go in the morning because you know my son has got a cough or something we want to make sure. And so he said a thousand dollars in the whole year is what they spent on all their healthcare.

Tayla: 21:10

And that was like a bit expensive.

Sam: 21:12

Yeah.

Tayla: 21:12

A little bit expensive, I, I, yeah.

Sam: 21:15

And I get it that the taxes need to be higher to cover this, but again there isn't this bloat and wasteful spending of a giant insurance industry that is look, again, the insurance companies are there to make money. It's just bloat. They're literally just scraping money out of a system that doesn't need them.

Tayla: 21:35

Yeah and this is what I think about all the time where I'm like, yeah, you pay more taxes and stuff to cover this, but I'm already paying a lot of taxes and now I'm paying for very expensive health insurance that I wonder often why I have, because I'm also then still paying more out of pocket, more for deductibles, and I'm just like I would rather pay it into like a very set amount, have more taxes from the get-go and just like know that I'm covered and that I don't have to consider whether I can afford to take my eight month old to an emergency room because he can't breathe properly.

Sam: 22:10

Yeah, here's a hot take. I think it's patriotic. I think it's like the strong nationalism that a lot of Americans you know like to profess to support universal healthcare, like America, like.

Tayla: 22:23

America first, america first, yeah, if you want America first, that's our Take care of America, yeah.

Sam: 22:28

Let's have our money go to pay for ourselves, not something else.

Tayla: 22:33

Yeah, so let's talk a bit more about that patchwork, mishmash insurance that we have right now, so private insurance, government programs and out of pocket expenses. So we've talked a little bit about this, but I want you to say more, a bit about how the fragmented approach kind of impacts accessibility and efficiency here.

Tayla: 22:52

We so sorry, a lot of you know people like my dad, who, again, I love and respect so much, but a lot of their reasons for being like no, we can't have socialized medicine, then you'll wait months and months, and months for to see this, or you'll make it'll be weeks before you can see this specialist or whatever, and that can be true. But is that really different? Is it really that different from what we have here in the States? In my experience, no, not really.

Sam: 23:19

Yeah. So if I, you know, want to go see, like I went to go get some molds and my shoulders checked for see if they cancerous, right I'm, I'm turned 40. So I'm sorry Didn't have to do these things and yeah, I had to book appointment like two weeks out. There wasn't. It was not like a cool, I can just rock up and go. You see a specialist. The emergency room took almost three hours and that's not an an, an out of the ordinary experience. When we went there again with Max a year ago, similar thing I went there for I think two years ago went to the emergency room and that was I don't even remember it because I wasn't so much pain, but Tayla was like, it was horrible.

Sam: 23:58

It was like two hours as well, something.

Tayla: 24:00

And you were in a lot of like that.

Sam: 24:02

That was it felt a lot more emergent than the other ones. Yeah, and so it's not like it. It is super quick, that's an emergency room Like that's the, that's the fastest thing, and then when it's just a normal appointment, it is weeks out and it is a wait.

Tayla: 24:16

And you're also still I mean, even though you have appointments, like you are, I will be in a doctor's office for my kids regularly scheduled checkups. I'll be there for two hours. Yeah, easy peasy, yeah, and you're waiting in the room and then waiting in this, the little rooms, and then we've waited one time I remember it was like almost three hours we're like.

Sam: 24:33

We started like buggy yeah bugging people like hey, where is anyone coming? Like hello.

Tayla: 24:39

Yeah, it was for an OB appointment. We were making like birth decisions and we both worked full time and we had to cancel like meetings that we had scheduled two hours out from our appointment just in case and we had to cancel those. So and that's the other thing is like you can't go one place and be treated. It's like, oh well, I need to refer you in two weeks to this specialist, who will refer you in two weeks to that specialist, who will, whereas in a lot of these universal healthcare systems you go for whatever issues you have, it's not just a single issue appointment that you go for what you need to and they typically will treat you right there and then yeah.

Tayla: 25:17

Let's go take you to the next room for an x-ray or for no, you got to wait weeks for, like your diagnostics and your MRI appointment, and yada yada yada, yeah, yeah, and I think it just comes from.

Sam: 25:29

There's this friction relationship between the medical practitioners and the insurance companies. So the medical practitioners you know, hospitals and doctors they're having to fight to get money because they get paid through the insurance company. So they fight with the insurance companies and then the insurance companies fight to not give them money, right, and then the insurance insurance companies and fight the consumer, us, to be like, yeah, that's not really covered, and they'll come up with whatever the reasons they can because again, they only exist to suck money out of it.

Tayla: 26:03

Yeah, that's literally it.

Tayla: 26:07

It's painful, and so I just think and this is where you and I both land, where we're like. You know, I think definitely universal healthcare in a country has its own cons. I will happily accept those cons in comparison to what I have here. I would. I would. That's in my experience. But let's talk about this insurance thing too, because despite the high spending for insurance here in the States and despite the fact that everyone's supposed to be insured, 28 million Americans remain yet uninsured. So what barriers are there typically for people like this to access? And I don't even know if we could think of potential solutions.

Sam: 26:47

But I mean the first barrier is just how much it costs for health insurance. So the Obamacare was going to try and make it more affordable make it more affordable by creating a giant marketplace so that there'd be competition, so you know there'd be affordable and affordable insurance, which there is, at a very low income, very low.

Tayla: 27:09

Yeah, so if you're like on the poverty line, yeah, so our health insurance.

Sam: 27:14

what it's? 500 bucks a month about 500 bucks a month and it doesn't for the four of us, and you've heard how much it covers, like it's a good high level. It's 500 bucks a month and it doesn't cover very much when you think about it.

Tayla: 27:29

Yeah, there's a high out of pocket at that, like we should be. We have the option to pay a lot more and to pay less out of pocket, but like it just ends up being the same thing.

Sam: 27:39

Yeah, so we could have done. It's something like $1,100 a month and then you're out of pocket, like or whatever your deductible your deductible goes down to like, yeah, two grand, and then there's out of pocket beyond deductible, which is a whole another confusing.

Tayla: 27:55

People can't, even freaking, understand that the insurance system.

Sam: 27:58

Yeah, so there's a deductible per person. So like Each person has to spend a certain amount out of pockets until they've reached this deductible and then after that there's a total out of pocket spend that you have to reach as well, like that's for the whole family.

Tayla: 28:16

It's ridiculous. It's a scam for sure. But yeah, I think you're right. I think it's unaffordable. It's cheaper to take the fine than it is to pay for the insurance.

Sam: 28:27

That's what a number of people are doing, especially at the beginning. They get that Christian health ministries insurance where it's not really insurance but it qualified to be labeled as insurance and so you could at least not take the fine, the tax fine, whatever.

Tayla: 28:43

Yeah, but the whole thing is just like again we're spending so much more per capita and yet almost 30 million people are still in like. That's not including 30 million people that are still uninsured.

Sam: 28:57

Yeah, and it's a role of the DOS. You get super sick and it's one of those things that just bankrupt you in the United States. You get cancer, you have some sort of long-term illness or disability and you're pretty much done, that's. You don't really have any sort of financial. You're not gonna thrive.

Tayla: 29:14

Yeah, you might survive and just keep paying and paying and paying slowly every month, but you'll never get ahead and you'll never grow and survive financially from that. So there's another dilemma in the United States as well, which is the doctor dilemma, the healthcare professional dilemma, where the burnout of that industry is so high. There's rising administrative burdens, litigative burdens, student loan debt. It all contributes to physician and burnout and I don't know what solutions I mean, but it's true. People are not staying in. They cannot, for their own health, stay in the industry and I think COVID affected that a lot too. Like they, just way too much was expected of them. But like our doctors the happiest doctors in the world they're not actually for the most part they're also struggling. They're really struggling.

Sam: 30:05

Yeah, so yeah, they don't make it like a set salary. It really is based on, like, how many people you're seeing. Like that's literally like there's an incentive for them just to continuously work non-stop.

Tayla: 30:19

Yeah, and that's the same. I mean, that's the same with nurses. You have to be so good at everything, you have to know so much. It's so physical, so demanding, and they get paid well. But is it well enough to get them to stay for decades, like someone would expect to stay in a career? Like often not. People make a change they can't. It's not sustainable for them. So a lot of people will also talk about, like the technological advances or the medical advances that come from our current system that offer a new diagnostic and treatment option. So how do we ensure, like, continuous, equitable access to these innovations and that they keep happening, while also focusing on, like, patient-centered care?

Sam: 31:06

That's a great question, because there really is an incentive for big pharma to come up with things. You know, whoever has the next breakthrough in whatever is America's biggest ailment it's gonna make-.

Tayla: 31:18

Obesity, for example. Billions right, They'll make billions.

Sam: 31:22

And so there's a financial incentive for drug companies, especially to come up with treatments that people will-.

Tayla: 31:30

Pay for yeah and drugs instead of focusing on, like wellness and preventative care.

Sam: 31:36

Yeah, so it isn't focused on wellness and preventative care, and so that's why we literally have it's something like 80% of the population is like obese, overweight or obese, and like our health is horrible. We eat processed food. We don't-.

Tayla: 31:50

Cause that's what you can afford.

Sam: 31:52

Yeah, that's what we can afford. And also it's there's no like incentive to be like, hey, let's get everyone on an exercise program, let's get everyone doing fitness, let's get everyone not, you know, doing all these horrible things. For us, that's the incentive is cheap food, cheap drugs.

Tayla: 32:08

Yeah, and this might be my hot take, but I think fitness is a privileged position. It's a privileged thing to have.

Sam: 32:14

Yeah, like I'm one of those people that have only recently been able to start taking care of my health again, because You're working for yourself. I'm working myself. I have some privilege. You know there's a big portion of the last decade that I just didn't have the time not even close. And yeah, taking care of your health was very hard. I'm now privileged enough to start taking it seriously. And my life is completely better before it's. You know like doing all this fitness, eating healthy, it's just like a whole new me.

Tayla: 32:44

We always talk about how jealous I am because I'm not in that state. I don't have the freedom and the space. Like fitness is just not possible for me right now, with what with my priorities, which are my kids and my job to make our money.

Tayla: 32:56

You know I'm not going to get off of my full day of work or haven't seen my kids and then go and work out and be like see you again in an hour or whatever. You know it's just not my time and we again are well off. We are privileged people and even that is a privilege I don't feel is in my grasp. So it's just hard because when you're doing well like you, can keep doing well. I guess. You have money, you can pay for your insurance and you're privileged enough to be able to focus on preventative care just yourself, great, you're in a good position here in the States.

Tayla: 33:26

If you're working page and surviving paycheck to paycheck, you are not well insured. You have, you know, multiple kids, childcare Like. There's just no way that you're doing well when it comes to healthcare, and you're right. You can't afford good food, you can't afford to focus on your health before there is a problem. You literally cannot afford to. So you're forced to when things go bad. And that's why we just have such a sick population here in the States Is because there is no incentive to prevent being sick or unwell.

Sam: 33:57

Yeah, no, it's a bad system Boo.

Tayla: 34:01

It is. Let's see any other ones. So, all right, we have the aging population, which is an interesting thing to consider, so that leads to increased demand for long-term care and that's something I feel like we don't really prepare for as a healthcare system. It's like preparation for either generational or widespread issues Like we haven't really prepared for. And I'll say Michelle Obama tried to do this right. She tried to push initiatives in the schools to help kids. You know, she foresaw, along with a lot of other professionals, obesity being a huge problem in health, tried to put these programs in place. But I mean, we just don't really do that. We don't again, it's reactionary healthcare which is so difficult. It's flashy though often oh, this new, cool surgery, but it's not actually that helpful. So, all in all, if you were to recommend a course of action to move forward, if you could, here's your wand, sam.

Sam: 35:07

Here's my wand.

Tayla: 35:08

Recreate the American healthcare system, which I'm guessing you know would address the debates around universal healthcare, etc. What is your wand waving result in?

Sam: 35:18

I think we should learn from something like the other 37 successful socialized first world countries and go with socialized medicine with an added layer of private insurance available. It works, you know. So for the general population there is healthcare. So if we have to go to the emergency room because our son could die if he doesn't get hydration, you know, because he could have just continued to spiral and never would have never get through it Right.

Sam: 35:51

It shouldn't be five and a half thousand dollars. You know, not everyone just has five and a half thousand dollars just lying around to go. Do that, you know, once a year If you almost no one has that.

Sam: 36:02

And that's just the one kid, the one time with that. One thing you know, once, when stitches come and the broken bones come and all the other things, that there needs to be a basic medical system that is not going to bankrupt a person to be able to take care of themselves like that. And then again you can still have the privatized insurance layer on top of it for people that want to, you know, have the extra special care.

Tayla: 36:26

I need these specialists and I need I want to be seen in this amount of time.

Sam: 36:32

Yeah, and I need to have these specialized procedures. You know that are not as like, maybe life saving or needed, but they're still there. You can still have that thing through.

Tayla: 36:44

Like elective surgeries.

Sam: 36:45

Exactly. It works elsewhere and I still feel like there'd be enough incentive, for you know pharmaceutical companies and you know insurance companies that you know want to turn our profits. But the system that we've got is so broken and it's so apparent, and everyone knows this, and it's just mind boggling to me that we're just still sitting in the same Like trash big dumpster fire of a healthcare system.

Tayla: 37:13

Yeah, people just they don't want to move because they can't agree on everything. They don't want to move forward with anything. That is a frustrating part about the U S is just how political everything is and then, once that becomes the case, then there's an impulse and you just can't. You can't move forward and if you do, there's just barriers and people will undo things and I don't know, it's a, it's a. It's a cool feature of the U S government. It's there by design, based on the history, like we don't want dictators to be able to come in and stuff. But it does make things so inefficient and so frustrating and I just think if we can have better conversations on not the political talking points, but just on like, okay, this is a human problem, let's talk about human solutions that makes sense, based on data.

Tayla: 38:02

You know, there is a Scott Salverson who we had on for two episodes ago, his co-host on his podcast. He's a studying to be a physician's assistant right now and I would say he's pretty right wing, pretty conservative. I'd be so curious what he thinks now that he's kind of dipped his toes way more into the healthcare system from that end. So I'd be super curious. Maybe he'll do something on our social media with us. I'd be interested. But ultimately I think most people agree that this isn't working. It's not working for us. We need something else. Amen, Thanks for listening to the babe. What do you know about podcast?

Sam: 38:44

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